The present invention relates to the provisioning of telecommunication services in connection with subscription plans.
Telecommunications service providers operate in a highly competitive market. There are often multiple service providers operating in any given geographic area, and customers may choose among the multiple service providers for their telecommunications services. Since consumers often view the actual service as fungible (e.g., long distance telephone service) telecommunication service providers spend a large amount of resources on marketing activities. One such marketing activity is the offering of various types of service plans to customers. Often, these plans are based on cost structure and pricing rather than on the actual service being provided.
For example, one such known marketing plan is the offering of reduced rates to telephone calls placed to customers who use the same service provider as the calling party. This encourages people who talk to each other often (e.g., family members or friends) to use the same service provider. Of course, this is just one example and there are various telecommunication services and pricing plans available to customers from the various telecommunication service providers.
One well known problem in this area is customer churn, whereby customers switch from one service provider to another. This churn is a result of the highly competitive market and the aggressive marketing techniques of the service providers.
What is needed is an improved technique for providing telecommunication services that will initially attract customers to a service provider and that will encourage such customers to remain with the service provider.